In this small town that I live in, I have to credit word of mouth advertising for the success of my small business.  I do a good job for someone and they hire me to come back again, and they recommend me to their friends.  Many times those friends call me and hire me, and they are happy with my work so they keep calling me and they recommend me to their friends too!  I’ve had to spend very little money on advertising! 

The new trend in advertising nowadays is the social media marketing technique.  That technique also depends on word of mouth advertising, but focuses largely on promoting products and services through parties and blogging.

I’ve been reading a few articles lately about how one of the things that is going to “save” the planet, and the economy, is “green jobs.” “Green jobs” are jobs that are jobs related to work that is going to have a positive impact on our environment. Yet none of the articles are specific as to exactly WHAT those green jobs are going to be – they are very vague.

The last article that I read indicated that they don’t have to be manual labor jobs, but “green collar jobs” are being considered manual labor jobs. And the article indicated that people would be making at least $15 an hour to start. Well, that’s not the BEST money in the world, but it is pretty good starting pay for someone who is just starting out, so I’d like more information on that! It would be really nice if we could start to see more information about these “green jobs” and how people might get “into” a “green job” whether it is manual labor or otherwise.

My brother-in-law is an alcoholic. Of course, this worries my wife terribly. At first his addiction was not a big problem because for many years he was a “productive alcoholic.” That means that he was confining his drinking to after-work hours so that he could go to work and make a living and just confine his drinking to only be at home. I don’t have a clue about how he managed to work with a hangover! Is it even possible he didn’t have one? Is it possible he would just have a couple of drinks and get a “buzz” and then go to bed and wake up fine? I don’t have a clue!

Anyway, her family has decided it is time to do an intervention and get him into an alcohol rehab program. Largely because he has started drinking more and treating his family badly when he drinks. I guess he changed from a “happy drunk” to a “mean drunk.” No one likes to be around a “mean drunk,” of that I am sure! So my wife has been trying to research the different treatment centers near where he lives that would be a good match for his needs. Apparently there are a lot of addiction treatment centers available to choose from, and it will take a while for her to figure out which one is the best one for him.

This state that I live in is supposed to be such a clean and pristine state, but it has a horrible toxic rain (and snow) problem because of the toxins pumped into the air from factories from other states that drift downwind into our state.  I can see the effects of the toxic rain on the cemetery headstones.  The rain just eats away at them!  I get aggravated over how the folks “upwind” have the “right” to pollute the air of those of us who live “downwind.”  My aggravation grows when I am reminded of how the government has relaxed emissions standards to allow for more air pollution.  When I was a kid it was safe to eat snow, now that we have this toxic rain problem, I shudder to think about the kids in the area eating the snow!  And yet, I’m sure that they do it!

For a very long time my wife and I have talked about getting our house ready for our old age years. One of the things that we want to do to prepare the house for that is to remove our old bathtub and install a new walkin tubin its place.  We’d love to get one that has a lot of spa-type jets in it, and a built in bench to sit on so that we can use it like a spa.  Also we’d like to have a shower head in it so that we could use it like a regular shower if we want to just take a quick shower.  I’ve always thought that having a walkin tub is a really smart thing because it makes it so easy for people to get and out with less hazard of slipping and falling down.

I don’t normally watch the Dr. Phil show; I’m usually too busy at work, and don’t have a lot of time to watch television when I’m home. But I just found out that Dr. Phil did two shows dedicated to interviewing the woman who recently gave birth to octuplets. I’ve seen the Dr. Phil show occasionally, and for the most part I’ve felt that the shows were good. Although I have to say that sometimes Dr. Phil comes across as arrogant! Anyway, I certainly would have loved to see those two shows; I hope that they do a repeat of those two and that I know about them in time to tape them so I can watch them at some point.  I’d sure like to know what was in her head when she decided to have so many children that she cannot take care of!

My wife told me today that she wants to take belly dancing classes!  I’m not quite sure how to react to that!  She said she wants to do it for the exercise.  Anyway, my wife asked me to do a search on the Internet and see if I could find any local lessons, or maybe some lesson DVDs.  So I went to a website my sister had told me about that she had recently discovered and used it to search for local belly dancing classes for my wife.  The search experience resulted in my finding a lot of stuff related to belly dancing!  I was really quite impressed with how fast the results were; the results were in a different format than I’m used to seeing with other search engines, but it was good just the same.

I have a wealthy client that is in poor health.  When I go to plow and sand his dooryard, he always invites me in for a bagel and coffee.  I’ve found that when I do that he often gives me more jobs to do, so it is always a good idea to stop in and see him!  I’ve done a lot of landscaping work for him, putting in walkways and walls and fences and shrubs, and garden beds.  Anyway, the last time I stopped in to see him he told me that his doctor sent him to physical therapy, which involved him doing Aquatic therapy exercises in Swim spa.  He said that he enjoyed it so much that he wants to buy one of the indoor Hydrotherapy pools  to put in his house.

The only drawback, of course, was that he currently does not have a room in his house to put the pool.  So he was showing me the blueprints to put on the addition to his house that he is going to need to put the spa.   He told me that he remembered my telling him that I suffer from arthritis from time to time, and he told me that if I helped him with some of the remodeling work he needs done later this year that he would be glad to let me use the pool when my arthritis is kicking up!

Well, I thought that was tremendously generous of him to offer me access to his pool!  He was showing me pictures of what he plans to get; it is a real corker!

I was reading the yahoo news and saw a story about a baby boy in India was married to his neighbor’s dog , Jyoti, recently in an attempt to ward off evil spirits and to protect the baby boy from being eaten by wild animals.  According to the article, the baby, who is under the age of two had sprouted a tooth.  Supposedly this is a bad omen for his tribe, and so his tribe married him to the dog to protect the village and the boy from the bad luck that this new tooth is feared to bring.  Well, this was really odd in so many ways!  If I recall correctly, all of the babies in our families have at least one tooth by the time they are eighteen months old.  So this is just weird beyond weird.  Fortunately for the groom, he will be allowed to marry a human bride when he is older without having to divorce Jyoti.  How bizarre, how bizarre!

My wife and I have been trying a few different products to whiten our teeth.  Most of the ones we have tried have only resulted in our gums hurting like crazy!  We’ve spoken to our dentist about our desire to have whiter teeth, and he just “pooh-poohs” us.  He says that everybodys teeth yellow with age.  He also says that people with thick enamel (which is good for teeth) have yellower teeth than those people who have thin enamel (which is bad for teeth.)  He says that really white teeth really is not a good sign of dental health!  Well, we took comfort in that information for a while, but it still bothers my wife that when she smiles in the mirror her teeth look yellow.

I just found out about a process in cosmetic dentistry called dental veneers. Dental veneers have been around for twenty years, but I just heard about them for the first time today.   I ran into the wife of an old friend of mine at the local coffee shop and she was telling me about how she was looking into having it done.  She explained that it is painless and permanent and safe.  So my wife and I are going to look into it too!

I was reading an article on the Time.com website that was reporting on the recent theory put forth by psychologists that mixed-race children are better adjusted than single-race children. I found that article to be very interesting. I’m not sure that I agree with it, but I did find it interesting. I have known several people in my life that have a mixed-race background and have not found them to be any better, or worse, adjusted than the single-raced people that I have known.

I do know from my own observations of family and friends that there still is a lot of bigotry going on. I’m not defending it; in fact I abhor it, but I have observed that there still is a lot of bigotry going on. The article in the Time.com website stated that we are approaching a time when we (the US) will all be celebrating our multi-racial pride. I don’t think that is going to happen in my lifetime!  I’d like to see it, but I think that the bigotry is still too entrenched in too many families.  And bigotry is something taught from parent to child, so it is very difficult to eradicate.

I have been noticing with much interest when the news talks about airfares going up and down in response to the economy.  I’m sure that the airlines are walking a very fine line.  They need to fill their seats and turn a profit, but if they charge too much money for their flights the customers simply won’t fly. And I keep hearing about how some airlines are trying to save money by not offering drinks or snacks, or make more money by charging fees for baggage.  It used to be that airlines let you check two suitcases for free, and now some of them are charging for every single bag that you check.

Now I’m hearing that the airlines are cutting their rates again in an attempt to fill their seats.  I wonder how long those cheap flights are going to last! My daughter wants to take a vacation soon and we like to use United Airlines when we fly because we find that their flight schedule is the most convenient for us most of the time.  And we also find that the planes are comfortable and have fewer transfers and layovers than most of the other airlines that service our area.

I heard on the weather channel today that we are expected to get sixteen more inches of snow today! I’m beginning to wonder if the winter will ever end! I’m not complaining, mind you, I really need the money that I’m getting for plowing and sanding and hauling snow away! I guess we are moving into a spell of long winters again. Last year was a long, cold, snowy winter, and so is this one. I sure hope the trucks, plows and sanders keep on working okay! We’ll be fine as long as we don’t have any major breakdowns!

This used to be such a sleepy, safe area.  No one locked their doors at night.  Or during the day either for that matter.  The Mom & Pop stores left merchandise sitting on the walkway in front of their stores overnight without any worry at all that they’d be stolen or vandalized.  The “big local news” would be about car accidents or which girls basketball team won the tournament.  The local crime page would be about someone complaining that a cow was running loose and had gotten tangled up in a laundry line full of clean clothes.

Now it seems that “big city crime” is moving outwards and our sleepy little towns are becoming a safe haven for gangs and illegal drugs.  Our area used to have its share of alcoholics and folks that were suffering from medication addictions, but now we are starting to see more people who are suffering from recreational drug addiction too.

Earlier today I was discussing this subject with my neighbor, who told me that his grandson was just released from a drug treatment program.  He had been sent to a drug treatment center after his parents caught him fencing some of his mother’s nice jewelry to use the money to buy drugs.  I just cannot even imagine how horrible a feeling that would be; to discover that your own child was stealing your jewelry and fencing it to buy drugs!  How sad.  I hope that the program got him straightened out!

I’m rather confused. I was just reading an article on MSNnbc’s website that the California’s courts have struck down a law that was designed to prevent the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The reason I’m confused is that I thought that there was already a rating system in place that told stores/vendors to NOT sell video games that are rated for “Mature” audiences. Anyway, the courts ruled that it was up to the parents to keep their kids from playing violent games, not up to the stores. This does not make a lot of sense to me. If kids are not allowed to go to “X” rated movies, then they should not be allowed to buy or rent “Mature” rated video games! Although I agree that parents need to guide their children, the sad fact is that many times children will “sneak behind the parent’s back” to get things that they really want. I think that a law preventing minors from buying or renting “Mature” games is very appropriate!

My grandparents always said that “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.”  When I was really young I didn’t understand what that meant, and I thought that they were crazy.  I guess that is an old adage that time has proven right time and time again.  When people don’t have anything to do, they tend to look for something to do, and sometimes that “thing” is not a good thing.

There are not a lot of activities in this area to keep teenagers and young adults entertained in a healthy manner.  Drug abuse and alcoholism run rampant in this area.  People are just so bored that they turn to drugs, booze, and sex to keep themselves entertained.  If it weren’t for easy access to birth control, we’d have a really high rate of teenage pregnancies, of that I am sure!  What’s really sad is that so many of these people become addicted and end up having to seek help through an alcohol rehabilitation center.

Many of them, however, wait until their doctors tell them that they have to quit drinking because it is having a negative effect on their health; for example liver damage is a common side effect of alcoholism.  Or they wait until they’ve gotten married and had children and then lose their loved ones because their addiction has turned them into abusive partners and parents.  Alcohol rehabilitation is one vital business service that I wish was not necessary, but really glad that it exists!  I think that with the economy turning sour, we will need these services even more than before!

A couple of nights ago I was watching the news.  I think it was CNN Headline news, I’m really not sure.  Anyway, they were talking about a pod of dolphins in Canada that were trapped by a lot of ice in a harbor in Seal Cove and were in danger of drowning because they need air to breathe and the ice was closing in.  The news story said that the local residents were very upset that no one “in authority” was going to help the dolphins and that the dolphins were going to die.

Well, I just read on the msnbc news website that the dolphins have been freed!  A group of fishermen and a teenage boy rescued the dolphins!  The fishermen used a trawler to break the ice into a path that the dolphins could swim out to open water.  One of the dolphins was too weak to make the swim, so the teenage boy donned a survival suit and jumped in the water and held onto the dolphin (and the dolphin held on to him!) and helped tow the dolphin out to the open water.  I think that is a very heartwarming rescue story!  Good for them!

All the winter weather we’ve had this year has been really hard on our house’s shutters.   There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to need to buy some new ones this spring.  I think that I’d like to replace them with functional shutters.  The shutters that were on this house when we bought them were “all right” but nothing special, and now they are definitely retirement age!  I’ve always wanted functional shutters, so I’m going to take a look at what needs to be done to put functional shutters on the house.  My wife has been taking a look at the shutters and hardware at the larsonshutter.com website to start figuring out what style we want to get.  I see that they are offering free shipping, so that’s a good incentive to buy from them!

I decided to change the theme on my blog today. I hope you like it! Some nervy hacker got into my server and caused a great big ruckus. I had to change all kinds of things to get the nasty bugs out of my stuff! Part of what I had to do was change my theme. Since I like cars, I like it! It was just a drag having to deal with the aggravation of trying to fix the damage done by the hacker. I don’t think that the hacker got anything “vital” or really important, just made a mess of things. I’ll never understand why some people enjoy causing other people they don’t even know aggravations like that!

Two companies that sell fresh produce, the Chiquita Company and the Fresh Express Company have joined forces with the American Heart Association to promote awareness of Heart Disease.  They have created a program where you can sign up at the freshfunds.com website and get points for buying products from the two different companies at participating stores, and then the points get magically transformed into cash for the American Heart Association.

In addition, there is a website designed for people who are participating to share their stories of how they are paying more attention to their health, and upload their photographs. That website also offers tips for healthy eating, and four healthy salad recipes that you might want to try out.